When I bought my Rotel RSP-1066, one of the features touted by Rotel was that they had designed the box to be easily "upgradable" as new technology came along. For a while, that claim seemed to be made by several manufacturers. From "modular" construction to software upgrades. The essence of the arguments seemed to be to try to convince the buyer that there was some sort of obsolescence protection built it.
While I didn't buy the notion that this was the last pre/pro I would ever have to buy, I did think that there would be at least some delivery on some kind up "newer technology" upgrade during the life of the product. After 8 or 9 years, I'm still waiting.
I recall one firmware upgrade that required that I buy an specially made RS-232 cable. But Rotel never delivered on the suggestion that buying their product would at least make a dent in the notion of disposable A/V equipment.
Going back further, I have a B&K AVP-1000 that was supposed to be "upgradable". Other than a chip swap that replaced a faulty one, I don't recall any follow through on that promise either.
What got me to thinking about this topic is the Emotiva offer to take 40% off the price of the purchase of a "next generation" processor if you have purchased one of their processors. A 40% discount and you keep the "old" processor. Now that sounds like a strategy to combat obsolescence.
I guess I never really believed that these "promises" to protect the consumer from having to buy new boxes every time a new format comes out would deliver in the end. But I didn't think that the manufacturers would totally ignore the promises.
Has anybody ever experienced a hardware upgrade that lengthened the useful life of an A/V processor?
